than it is sorrowful, namely, that among God's
holiest instruments for the elevation of human nature is 'mutual
slaughter' among men; yes, that 'Carnage is God's daughter.'' 'Any
confederation or compact of nations for abolishing war would be the
inauguration of a downward path for man.' 'There is a mystery in
approaching this aspect of the case which no man has read fully. War has
a deeper and more ineffable relation to hidden grandeurs in man than has
as yet been deciphered. To execute judgments of retribution upon
outrages offered to human rights or to human dignity, to vindicate the
sanctities of the altar and the sanctities of the hearth--these are
functions of human greatness which war has many times assumed, and many
times faithfully discharged. But behind all these there towers dimly a
greater. The great phenomenon of war it is--this, and this only--which
keeps open in man a spiracle--an organ of respiration--for breathing a
transcendent atmosphere, and dealing with an idea that else would
perish--viz., the idea of mixed crusade and martyrdom, doing and
suffering, that finds its realization in such a battle as that of
Waterloo--viz., a battle fought for interests of the human race felt
even where they are not understood; so that the tutelary angel of man,
when he traverses such a dreadful field, when he reads the distorted
features, counts the ghastly ruins, sums the hidden anguish, and the
harvests

'Of horror breathing from the silent ground,'

nevertheless, speaking as God's messenger, blesses it, and calls it very
good.'

Startling as these assertions may appear at first sight, they are,
notwithstanding, profoundly philosophical; all history proclaims their
solemn truth--is, in fact, totally inexplicable and confused on any
other supposition. History is by no means merely biography condensed;
far from it; biography is concerned with the shifting and ephemeral
career of individual men; but history, far transcending that lowly
sphere, records the revolution and progress of principles; these succeed
each other in everlasting succession, like the revolution of day and
night; and individuals rise into importance only as they stand related
to, are the agents of, this progress. The future is forever supplanting
the present; the feud is immortal--the antagonism inevitable; if effete
ideas and principles, which have accomplished their mission, refuse to
retire and peaceably give place to their legitimate success